Press
Release

For Immediate ReleaseJanuary 24, 2007

Washington D.C.
FBI National Press Office
(202) 324-3691

40 Years of NCIC

Clarksburg, WV – When a New York City police officer
on patrol in 1967 radioed a request to the FBI’s
new National Crime Information Center (NCIC) to run the
plates of a suspicious parked car, he learned in 90 seconds
that the car had been stolen in Boston a month earlier.
By any measure of the day, that transaction was speedy
considering it had to search 95,000 records in 15 state
and city computers linked to the FBI. Fast forward to 2007,
when officers query NCIC over 5 million times a day, search
millions of records, and get a response in approximately
.05 seconds.

As NCIC approaches its 40 th anniversary, success stories
such as the one above are every day occurrences. In recognition
of the anniversary and NCIC’s accomplishments, the
FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS)
Division, in Clarksburg, West Virginia will hold a commemorative
ceremony on January 26, 2007. Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach,
former FBI Deputy Director under J. Edgar Hoover, will
be the keynote speaker for this event.

Below are just a few examples of NCIC successes over the
years:

1.) In early 1999, a Field Investigations Office of the
New York Division of Motor Vehicles (NYDMV) noticed a discrepancy
in the vehicle identification number (VIN) of a 1961 Jaguar.
The NYDMV then contacted NCIC staff and requested an NCIC
off-line search. Based on a partial VIN obtained from further
examination of the vehicle, the NCIC search produced a
1981 stolen vehicle record for the same 1961 Jaguar. New
York authorities recovered the automobile, valued at $100,000.

2.) After an informant gave an FBI agent information
about an organized drug group operating between Arizona
and the Midwest, NCIC staff conducted searches on names
that the informant provided from January 1994 to February
1996. They found inquiries that verified the suspected
geographic travel patterns of many of the subjects. This
information aided local and federal authorities in securing
indictments of the individuals for conspiracy to distribute
marijuana. Local and federal authorities subsequently searched
the suspects’ property and recovered cash and drugs
valued at $350,000. Nine individuals were arrested.

3.) Police were called to a private residence after the
owner was found dead. Detectives subsequently determined
that the individual was a homicide victim but found no
evidence to identify the perpetrator. After weeks of questioning
family members and neighbors, the detectives began to suspect
a stepson who lived several hundred miles away in a different
state. Though the stepson claimed he was not in the area
when the homicide occurred, a neighbor reported seeing
a vehicle with out-of-state license plates near the victim’s
home around the time of the incident. Working with investigators
from the Department of Motor Vehicles, the detectives were
able to obtain a list of vehicles matching the description
provided by the neighbor. Further investigation revealed
that one license plate belonged to the girlfriend of the
stepson. When confronted with the fact that her car may
have been used in the commission of a crime, the girlfriend
admitted the stepson had borrowed her car during the month
the killing had occurred. The detectives requested an NCIC
off-line search to determine whether the vehicle had been
queried within several days before or after the homicide.
The search revealed that an agency in the county where
the homicide occurred had made several inquiries. The detectives
subsequently contacted the officer who requested the license
check. His log indicated he had stopped the vehicle, questioned
several occupants after seeing them drinking, and issued
tickets. When this evidence was presented to the stepson,
he confessed to the murder and also implicated the victim’s
son. This NCIC search assisted in the arrest of two murderers.

4.) NCIC staff provided valuable lead information in
an investigation of a missing female. The staff conducted
a search on the missing person’s name and license
plate for the five days before law enforcement officials
had entered a record containing her personal data into
the NCIC. The results included a query on the license plate
from a neighboring police department while the vehicle
was parked at a local motel. Law enforcement personnel
checked the motel and found that the vehicle was still
there. The motel’s desk clerk provided information
that led the officers to a motel room where they found
two men associated with the vehicle. They also found in
the room a female who had been reported missing in a separate
incident. The investigator’s search of the vehicle’s
trunk revealed blood that was identified to be that of
the owner who was then presumed to be a homicide victim.
The police held the two men as murder suspects. The two
subjects eventually entered into a plea agreement. Each
pled guilty to one count of first-degree murder and one
count of kidnapping. They were sentenced to life without
the possibility of parole. Based on information provided
by the murderers as a condition of the plea agreement,
law enforcement officials subsequently recovered the body
of the missing female.

5.) An FBI field division contacted NCIC staff to request
a search concerning a kidnapping with a ransom demand.
The staff searched NCIC for the victim’s name and
license plate number from the date of last contact to the
current day. The results indicated that Texas authorities
had queried the license plate several times. The FBI agent
contacted the officer who had conducted one of the license
plate inquiries. The officer advised him that the driver
of the vehicle was suspected of robbing a convenience store
and that officers had been following the vehicle throughout
the day. The driver was the lone occupant of the vehicle,
and his physical description was very similar to that of
the alleged kidnapping victim. The agent sent photographs
and other pertinent information to Texas to assist the
officers in the robbery investigation. Following a second
robbery, the suspect led law enforcement officers on a
high-speed car chase that ended when the suspect’s
vehicle crashed. Officers could not use a photograph of
the suspect taken at the time of the accident because facial
injuries suffered by the suspect in the crash left him
unrecognizable by witnesses. However, a photo provided
by the FBI from the kidnapping investigation was then shown
to the witnesses. They identified the suspect, and law
enforcement officers issued a warrant and formally arrested
the suspect on two counts of robbery and one count of extortion
for the fabricated kidnapping.

As evidenced by the above success stories, since its inception
NCIC has operated under a shared management concept between
the FBI and local, tribal, state and federal criminal justice
agencies. The general policy concerning the philosophy,
concept, and operational principles of NCIC are based upon
the recommendations of the Criminal Justice Information
Services (CJIS) Division Advisory Policy Board (APB) to
the Director of the FBI. Top administrators from criminal
justice agencies throughout the United States make up the
APB.

“The importance of the CJIS Advisory Policy Board
to the planning, implementation, and enhancement of national
criminal justice systems cannot be understated. It is through
this process that we are able to work in partnership with
the FBI, and each other, to sustain and enhance systems
such as NCIC. This is a very large responsibility because
the bottom line is NCIC has a direct impact on protecting
law enforcement personnel and the American people, said
Paul C. Heppner, Deputy Director for the Georgia Crime
Information Center, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and
the Chairman of the CJIS APB.